Funeral Song by Ágnes Gergely

(November 2010)

The road turns by the press-house and a white

mud village greets me huddling to the right,

 

blue winding polished hill road that I see

with not a soul just trees and tidy lines

of modest homes with aerials and vines

 

 

the prosperous plebeian class dwelled here

 

when carts of travelling merchants left a track

along these gentle hills five centuries back:

 

calm bakers of brown loaves and honey-bread

they watched above the mounting thunderhead

 

behind them a castle resounded with music and dance

of the Renaissance with Italian elegance

 

and roads took root wherever their carts would ply

in his brown caftan tightly wrapped, one day

my own forefather might have come this way

 

and where I stand he might have glanced and slowed

his pace to preach with caution by the road

 

perhaps that other one, more sober, plain

made fancy saffian footwear by the lane

 

as his wife with amber eyes surveyed the ground

and kept her guard against a hostile hound

 

and a toddler played about her gathering

the air and travel far beyond the hill

 

surviving winters, with the gales they flew

these lands caress them softly like a shroud

they came unasked and graceful like a cloud

 

they were, as I protect and hold to my

both ways the road winds blue beyond your span

II. SIGN ON MY DOOR JAMB

 

In memoriam my father

 

I do not cherish memories

and even those I hold I do not safeguard.

I do not seek forgotten graveyards.

Organic chemistry does not move me.

 

Yet, at times like this, towards November

as fog-damped windows seal this room

and I gasp for air and relief, I am surprised

arising through the waters of my mind.

 

I feel your long and nervous fingers as they

arrange a Thermos flask and a pocket knife

with an old can opener in the gaping knapsack,

and also warm underclothes and a prayer-book

and under the weightless load you still can carry

I share the creaking surprise of your back.

I sense your departure. Elegant tramp, you set out,

and look back laughing, aged just 38 years,

though you whimper inwards like a Medny?nszky portrait

and Ferdinand Bridge, the sludgy march, the bars,

forget these freak inventions of the mind.

For I have lied: I see you often

and above, where it has no business, that thin

is burning through the skin of a star.

 

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